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双边平台上的顾客发声:峰时定价对顾客投诉的影响

Customer Voice on Two-Sided Platforms: The Effect of Surge Pricing on Customer Complaints
Management Science · 2025 · Linli Xu、Yanhao “Max” Wei、Yi Zhu

中文摘要

双边平台(如网约车、自由职业劳动和住宿租赁)撮合顾客与服务提供者。顾客可以通过评论/评分系统表达其满意程度,平台则利用该系统来监督和甄别服务提供者。然而,顾客可能将针对平台层面特征的投诉错误地指向个别服务提供者。我们在某大型网约车平台的情境下考察这一问题的程度与后果,并聚焦于峰时定价这一平台层面特征。我们的发现如下:第一,对于平均一趟行程,峰时定价使司机收到投诉(无论是低评分还是正式投诉)的可能性提高至原来的1.13倍。第二,投诉会对司机的未来收入产生负面影响,由峰时定价引发的投诉抵消了司机从加价车费中获得的即时收益的约23%。第三,在平台实施限制峰时定价幅度的政策之后,峰时定价对顾客投诉的效应有所减弱;该政策还带来了平台使用量的增加。结果表明,网约车平台上的定价系统与评论系统之间存在密切的相互作用。更广泛而言,这些结果凸显了在线双边平台识别并处理被错误指向服务提供者的平台层面特征类顾客投诉的重要性。

Abstract

Two-sided platforms (e.g., ride-sharing, freelance labor, and lodging) match customers and service providers. Customers can voice their satisfaction level through review/rating systems, which the platforms use to monitor and screen service providers. However, customers may misdirect complaints about platform-level features toward individual service providers. We examine the extent and consequences of this issue in the context of a large ride-sharing platform. We focus on surge pricing as the platform-level feature. Our findings are as follows. First, for an average trip, surge pricing makes it 1.13 times more likely for the driver to receive a complaint (either a low rating or a formal complaint). Second, complaints negatively impact a driver’s future income. Surge-induced complaints offset about 23% of a driver’s immediate gain from the surged fare. Third, after the platform adopted a policy to cap the magnitude of surge prices, the effect of surge on customer complaints reduced. The policy also led to more usage of the platform. The results suggest a close interaction between the pricing and review systems on ride-sharing platforms. More broadly, they point to the importance for online two-sided platforms to identify and address customer complaints about platform-level features that may have been misdirected to service providers.
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